Category Archives: Accountability and Representation

When the media does us wrong and community accountability

Accountability and Representation

Lifeline Story Bank

 

Posted by Media Alliance, TURN, Greenlining Institute, Milestone Consulting on March 2nd, 2016

As the FCC debates the modernization of the Lifeline telephone subsidy program to include Internet access for the first time, Media Alliance and the Media Action Grassworks Network (Mag-Net) are taking action to make sure the agency hears from the program’s users, its potential users in the future, and the communities most impacted by lack of broadband access.

The Lifeline Story Bank will collect written testimonies, pictures and short audio or video clips and deliver them directly to the policy makers and the press to make sure DC just doesn’t just talk to themselves. Continue reading Lifeline Story Bank →

Accountability and Representation

Fighting the Beast on Bryant at City Hall

 

On Thursday June  2, 2016,, I joined dozens of people who live or work in San Francisco’s Mission District at the San Francisco Planning Commission to speak up against yet another huge luxury housing development proposed for the neighborhood. The activist-dubbed “Beast on Bryant” adds 196 more luxury units to a neighborhood already built out way in excess of the Eastern Neighborhoods Plan, and removes tens of thousands of square feet of badly needed light industrial space. The project was opposed by the San Francisco Labor Council and the Building Trades Council.

While the Planning Commission’s tendency to rubber stamp housing projects is infamous and nobody really expected the project would go down to defeat, the surprising part of the day and evening spent at City Hall was the full court press of the San Francisco Sheriff’s department. Why were the sheriffs intervening in Planning Commission decisions? Was this on someone’s order? Continue reading Fighting the Beast on Bryant at City Hall →

Accountability and Representation, Internet Freedom, Press Room

All We Want Is Equal Representation Online

1 Comment

 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

November 10, 2014

Statement from Media Action Grassroots Network MAG–Net.org

Oakland, California —  A recent article in the Wall Street Journal revealed that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC)  is considering a legally dubious “hybrid” approach to new open Internet rules that would allow some forms of discrimination.  Communities of color and low-income families are among the more than 3.7 million people in the United States that have urged the FCC to reclassify broadband as a common carrier, and enforce Title II rules that prevent online censorship and discrimination.

Tracy Rosenberg, Director of MAG–Net Member Media Alliance in Oakland, CA, said, “The courts have already thrown back awkward compromises twice. The third time won’t be the charm. Full reclassification with forbearance is the only proven road to level the playing field on the Internet our communities need”. Continue reading All We Want Is Equal Representation Online →

Accountability and Representation, Press Room

Medium Rare TV Questions Comic-Con Press Pass Policy

 

August 21, 2014

For Immediate Release

Contact: Tracy Rosenberg, Executive Director, Media Alliance (510) 684-6853 (c) or Email: tracy@media-alliance.org
Kevin Robinson, Executive Producer, Medium Rare TV (415) 576-1130 (c) or Email: kevin@mediumraretv.org

Medium Rare TV Questions Comic-Con Press Pass Policy

San Francisco-A film, television and gaming blogging site, Medium Rare TV, which highlights the achievements of people of color in the film, television and gaming industries, has written a letter of protest to Comic-Con International, the educational nonprofit which throws the annual Comic-Con International Trade Show in San Diego and the Alternative Press Expo in San Francisco.

Medium Rare TV is objecting to the refusal to issue a press pass to Medium Rare for the large San Diego Comic-Con exposition last month, a crucial forum for the industries MRTV covers. MRTV observed in their letter that despite their completed application being filed prior to the deadline, no reason for the rejection was provided, and that at least one outlet had applied after the deadline and not been rejected. They expressed concerns that diversity, both in race and demography, and in size and focus of the media outlets that were granted press passes, was inadequately considered. Continue reading Medium Rare TV Questions Comic-Con Press Pass Policy →

Accountability and Representation, Press Room

Groups Urge Congresswoman Lee To Push Back Against Kickbacks

 

Oakland – The Campaign for Prison Phone Justice has kicked things up a notch with “In-District Visits” scheduled throughout the months of August and September.

On August 23, 2012, a delegation of organizations from the California Bay Area met with the Deputy District Director of Congresswoman Barbara Lee to discuss the high cost of receiving a phone call from a prison, jail or detention center. This visit was held as part of a larger effort called the Campaign for Prison Phone Justice a national campaign seeking to lower the cost of prison phone calls. Member-organizations of the delegation included the Center for Media Justice, Media Alliance, The Utility Reform Network (TURN) and Ella Baker Center. The delegation is petitioning the Congresswoman to ask the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to address the high cost of prison phone calls by passing the Wright Petition.
Continue reading Groups Urge Congresswoman Lee To Push Back Against Kickbacks →

Accountability and Representation, Press Room

LA Clearchannel hosts John and Ken Suspended for Calling Whitney Houston a Crack Ho

 

February 17, 2012

For Immediate Release

Contact: Tracy Rosenberg, Media Alliance (510) 684-6853

LA Clearchannel Hosts John and Ken Suspended for Calling Whitney Houston a Crack Ho:

Kobylt and Chiampou Under Advertising Boycott by LA Community Organizations for Harassing an Immigrant Rights Activist

Los Angeles-AM shock-jock hosts John Kobylt and Ken Chiampou were suspended by management at Clearchannel station KFI-AM in Los Angeles on Thursday, after referring to the recently deceased entertainer and singer Whitney Houston as a “crack ho”. The cause of Houston’s weekend death has not been determined. She was the subject of an emotional tribute at this past weekend’s Grammy Awards ceremony in Los Angeles, where she had been expected to appear. Houston was also the mother of a teenage daughter, Bobbi Christina Brown, who was hospitalized earlier in the week. Continue reading LA Clearchannel hosts John and Ken Suspended for Calling Whitney Houston a Crack Ho →

Accountability and Representation

And It’s Back: Bulletproof Warrior Bay Area

 

The killer cop trainings from Calibre, recently featured in the police militarization documentary Do Not Resist, came back to the Bay Area, only months after Santa Clara sheriff Laurie Smith removed the Santa Clara Sheriff’s Department from hosting a Calibre seminar after it hit the evening news.

The Calibre trainings, (one famous graduate is Jeronimo Yanez, the St Paul police officer who murdered Philando Castile live on Facebook last year), happened in February in Santa Rosa and Sacramento.

Continue reading And It’s Back: Bulletproof Warrior Bay Area →